Slowly.
He continued.
“What Gun Mugeol is trying to do is that. Forcibly merging the currents. That is not unification. It is a flood.”
Unhwi nodded.
“I agree with you, Elder Cheon.”
“Even as you agree, are you not thinking something else?”
Unhwi flinched.
The Heavenly Wayfarer chuckled.
“There is no need to hide it. Speak your thoughts.”
Unhwi was silent for a moment.
He picked up a stone.
Placed it on the Go board.
Tap.
“What you said about the currents being one is correct, Elder.”
“Yes.”
“But as long as the boulder exists, the water has no choice but to split.”
“.......”
“If the boulder cannot be removed, then one of the divided currents will swallow the other. Naturally.”
“Is that what you call unification?”
“Rather than unification, it is closer to the flow of nature.”
“And you will create that flow?”
“I am not creating it.”
Unhwi looked at the Heavenly Wayfarer.
“I am saying I will not stop what is already flowing.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer looked at Unhwi.
For a long time.
With eyes that were very clear.
“......Interesting.”
He murmured.
“Gun Mugeol seeks to force them together, and you seek to let them flow naturally.”
“Yes.”
“But is the result not the same? Becoming one.”
“The process is different.”
“Do you think the result is different if the process is different?”
“Yes. It is different.”
Unhwi spoke firmly.
“If it becomes one through flooding, everything is swept away. Villages, fields, people. It has become one, but it is a one with nothing left.”
“.......”
“If it becomes one through flow, the currents merge, but the villages on both riverbanks remain. The fields remain, and the people remain.”
“That is a good metaphor.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer placed a stone.
Tap.
“But becoming one through flow takes time.”
“It does.”
“During that time, Gun Mugeol will not sit still.”
“He will not.”
“What if Gun Mugeol causes a flood while you wait for the flow?”
Unhwi placed a stone.
Tap.
“Then I will have to stop it.”
“Can you stop it?”
“Yes.”
At the answer, which held not the slightest hesitation, the Heavenly Wayfarer paused for a moment in surprise. Unhwi paid it no mind and looked down at the Go board.
The Heavenly Wayfarer’s black stones had formed a massive influence in the center.
Unhwi’s white stones controlled the sides and corners.
A position where neither side had won.
“Have we had this conversation before?”
At the Heavenly Wayfarer’s words, Unhwi lifted his head. The Heavenly Wayfarer observed Unhwi’s eyes. Then he laughed softly.
“I can tell from your eyes.”
After thinking for a moment, Unhwi spoke quietly.
“I heard Gun Mugeol once entered Peach Blossom Garden.”
“He did.”
“If I kill Gun Mugeol, or if I break everything Gun Mugeol has, will that harm you, Elder Cheon?”
At Unhwi’s direct words, the Heavenly Wayfarer’s eyes narrowed.
“You have the look of someone determined to hear an answer.”
“Yes. I must hear it.”
“As Seol Unhwi? Or as Blood Heaven Arbiter?”
“Both.”
“Cluck, cluck...... Then I should answer. It will not harm me. But it will harm ‘others.’”
The others he spoke of here were not ordinary people of the martial world.
He meant people like Heaven Gate and the Maitreya Brahma Sect.
“Then that is enough.”
“Enough? Can you handle them?”
“It should be the opposite.”
“Mm?”
“What matters, I think, is whether they can handle me.”
“.......”
“I will do what I must do, and if they interfere with that, or if they take issue with it and try to pressure me.”
Unhwi paused briefly, then spoke firmly.
“Their limbs will be cut off one by one.”
“Cluck, cluck...... And if they still do not listen?”
“Then I will have to cut off their heads.”
“And handling it is their problem.”
“Yes.”
As if pleased, the Heavenly Wayfarer burst into a hearty laugh.
Unhwi asked that Heavenly Wayfarer,
“There is something I wish to ask you, Elder Cheon.”
“Ask.”
“What do you think of the unification of the martial world?”
The Heavenly Wayfarer picked up a stone.
He looked down at the Go board.
For a long while.
Then he placed the stone.
Tap.
“I believe I answered that back then.”
“I am asking for your true intent.”
“My true intent.......”
After thinking for a moment, the Heavenly Wayfarer slowly opened his mouth.
“I am a person who watches when water flows.”
“.......”
“I neither block what flows, nor make it flow. I merely watch.”
“If you only watch, do you not know where the water is going?”
“There is no need to know.”
“.......”
“Wherever water goes, it is water. Whatever it reaches, it is water. If it reaches the sea, it becomes the sea. If it reaches a lake, it becomes a lake. If it seeps into the ground, it becomes a spring.”
“Then do you mean you do not care what happens to the martial world, Elder?”
“It is not that I do not care.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer smiled.
“It is that there is no need to deliberately create what already is.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer was not uninterested in the unification of the martial world.
He believed the very concept of unification of the martial world was an illusion.
There was no need to make it one. Because it was originally one.
Because only the names were different.
Righteous and unorthodox, Blood Heaven Sect and Murim Alliance. The names were different, but they were the same martial world.
That was why he merely watched.
As one watches water flow.
......This man.
Unhwi thought inwardly.
He truly is someone close to the Way.
One who had surpassed Manifestation of the Boundless, Harmony realm, and the pinnacle.
To this man, the world must be like stones on a Go board.
Something that could be placed, or not placed.
Something that could be won, or lost.
A realm where the match itself had no meaning.
The man he would meet about a dozen years from now and the man here now were truly no different.
Unchanging.
That was why he was an even more difficult person.
“Elder Cheon.”
“Mm.”
“Even so, I will create a flow.”
“Cluck, cluck...... A flow......”
“If a flood comes, I will stop it.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer’s eyes gleamed.
“I will keep the Blood Heaven Sect from being swept away.”
“Do so.”
It was permission.
Permission to do as he wished.
Permission to let water flow as it wished to flow.
“Thank you.”
“What is there to thank me for?”
The Heavenly Wayfarer placed a stone.
Tap.
“I am merely playing because I like your Go.”
The seventy-second move.
The game was nearing its end.
The Heavenly Wayfarer’s black stones had completely seized the center. It was enormous territory. Several of Unhwi’s white stones had been captured within it.
But Unhwi’s white stones held definite profit on the sides and corners.
If they counted, it would be a half-point difference.
A position where the outcome was unknowable.
The Heavenly Wayfarer looked down at the Go board.
“It was an interesting game.”
Unhwi looked down at the Go board.
“Your center was extremely sharp, Elder Cheon.”
“Your sides were firm.”
“That was only possible because you did not attack the sides, Elder.”
“It is not that I did not attack.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer chuckled.
“There was simply no need to attack.”
“.......”
“You guard the sides. I will hold the center. Then the board is complete.”
Unhwi looked at the Heavenly Wayfarer for a moment.
“Ha, ha.”
It was a low laugh.
“I am liking you more and more.”
“You overpraise me.”
“It is not overpraise.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer picked up one of the stones on the Go board.
One of Unhwi’s white stones.
He rolled it between his fingers.
“Do you know what the best move in this game was?”
“I do not.”
“The thirty-sixth move. The move you placed in the center.”
“You mean the move where I entered to cut?”
“Yes. The move where you entered to cut.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer set the stone down.
“Do you know why that move was good?”
“I do not.”
“Because you entered knowing you could not cut.”
“.......”
“To enter despite knowing you cannot cut. That is courage.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer looked at Unhwi.
With clear eyes.
“It must have been the same when you went to Seok Junseo.”
“.......”
“You likely did not know whether you could win. You could have died. Even so, you went.”
“I had no choice but to go.”
“Yes. You must have had no choice but to go.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer nodded.
“To go where one has no choice but to go. That is the Way.”
“.......”
“You already stand upon the Way.”
Unhwi closed his mouth.
It was better to speak little before this man.
No matter how he answered, there was no end to the Heavenly Wayfarer’s words.
Throw a stone into a river, and the water merely swallowed the stone.
“Let us clear the board.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer said.
Unhwi began gathering the stones.
One by one.
The Heavenly Wayfarer also gathered the stones.
Black and white returned to their respective bowls.
The Go board became empty.
With the empty Go board between them, the two sat facing each other.
“If you are uncomfortable with my speaking casually, say so.”
Unhwi shook his head.
Each time they met.
The Heavenly Wayfarer’s manner of speech sometimes remained the same, and sometimes changed.
And now.
This manner of speech did not make Unhwi uncomfortable at all. Rather, it was comfortable.
“Unhwi.”
At those words, he flinched.
The Heavenly Wayfarer had called his name.
Not Blood Heaven Arbiter, not Seol Unhwi. Unhwi.
“Yes.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer swept his palm over the empty Go board.
Sssk.
“I said I watch when water flows.”
“Yes.”
“Yu Cheong is water too. Flowing water.”
“What if that water floods?”
“If it floods, then that can be seen when the time comes.”
Unhwi closed his mouth.
This was the Heavenly Wayfarer.
This man did not move. No matter what came, he did not move. If water came, he watched it. If fire came, he watched it. If a blade came, he watched it.
He watched, and if necessary, extended his hand.
When that hand extended, everything ended.
That was this man himself.
“I understand.”
Unhwi rose.
He bowed at the waist.
“I have sat for a long time. I will take my leave now.”
“Very well.”
The Heavenly Wayfarer closed his eyes.
“It was a good game.”
“I enjoyed it as well.”
He opened the door.
The sounds outside rushed in. The sound of wind. Birdsong. People’s footsteps.
Unhwi stepped out through the door.
The door closed.
Outside the cult leader’s palace.
Unhwi walked down the corridor.
As he walked, he thought.
The Heavenly Wayfarer.
This man was neither ally nor enemy.
This man was simply someone who existed.
As mountains exist, as rivers exist, this man existed.
He could not be used.
Nor could he be opposed. He was simply there, in that place.
But merely by being in that place, the Blood Heaven Sect was maintained.
Because the Heavenly Wayfarer existed, Yu Cheong could not move recklessly. Because the Heavenly Wayfarer existed, the martial artists of the Blood Heaven Sect were bound together as one.
Unhwi moved toward his residence.
The sky was high, and the wind was fierce.
The full moon illuminated the ground below.
***
Left alone in the cult leader’s palace, the Heavenly Wayfarer silently looked down at the empty Go board.
Without a word, he picked up a stone and placed it on the board.
Tap.
The center point.
The very center of the Go board.
“......An interesting child.”
He murmured as he looked at the stone.
A single stone placed at the center of the empty board.
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